State religion facts

A state religion (also called an official religion, established church or state church) is a religious group or creed officially accepted by the state. The term state church is used in context with Christianity, and is sometimes used for a specific national branch of Christianity.

Hindu countries

Nepal was the world's only Hindu state, but in order to negotiate with Maoist rebels they dropped the status as a Hindu state.

Others

Israel is defined in several of its laws as a Democratic Jewish state.

The United States and other countries indirectly fund religions of different denominations by granting tax-exempt status to churches and religious institutions which qualify as charitable organizations.

Ancient state religions

Egypt and Sumer

The concept of state religions was known as long ago as the empires of Egypt and Sumer, when every city state or people had its own god or gods.

Persian empire

Greek city-states

Many of the Greek city-states also had a 'god' or 'goddess' associated with that city.

Roman Religion and Christianity

When in Rome, the office of Pontifex Maximus was reserved for the emperor, failure to worship him as a god was sometimes punished by death, as the Roman government sought to link emperor worship with loyalty to the Empire. Many Christians and Jews were persecuted, because it was against their beliefs to worship the emperor.

In France the Concordat of 1801 made the Roman Catholic, Calvinist and Lutheran churches state-sponsored religions, as well as Judaism.

In Hungary the constitutional laws of 1848 declared five established churches on equal status: the Roman Catholic, Calvinist, Lutheran, Eastern Orthodox and Unitarian Church. In 1868 the law was ratified again after the Ausgleich. In 1895 Judaism was also recognized as the sixth established church. In 1948 every distinction between the different denominations were abolished.

Province of Maryland was founded by Irish Catholics in a state known as recusancy, but was stripped of this independence during the English Civil War by Roundheads--much as it was in the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland.

Spanish Florida was ceded to the Great Britain in 1763, the British divided Florida into two colonies. Both East and West Florida continued a policy of toleration for the Catholic Residents.

In several colonies, the establishment ceased to exist in practice at the Revolution, about 1776

in 1789 the Georgia Constitution was amended as follows: "Article IV. Section 10. No person within this state shall, upon any pretense, be deprived of the inestimable privilege of worshipping God in any manner agreeable to his own conscience, nor be compelled to attend any place of worship contrary to his own faith and judgment; nor shall he ever be obliged to pay tithes, taxes, or any other rate, for the building or repairing any place of worship, or for the maintenance of any minister or ministry, contrary to what he believes to be right, or hath voluntarily engaged. To do. No one religious society shall ever be established in this state, in preference to another; nor shall any person be denied the enjoyment of any civil right merely on account of his religious principles."

From 1780 Massachusetts had a system which required every man to belong to a church, and permitted each church to tax its members, and did not require that it be a Congregational church. This was objected to, as in practice establishing the Congregational Church, and was abolished in 1833.

Until 1877 the New Hampshire Constitution required members of the State legislature to be of the Protestant religion.

The North Carolina Constitution of 1776 disestablished the Anglican church, but until 1835 the NC Constitution allowed only Protestants to hold public office. From 1835-1876 it allowed allowed only Christians (including Catholics) to hold public office. Article VI, Section 8 of the current NC Constitution forbids only atheists from holding public office. Such clauses were held by the United States Supreme Court to be unenforceable in the 1961 case of Torcaso v. Watkins, when the court ruled unanimously that such clauses constituted a religious test incompatible with First and Fourteenth Amendment protections.

Religious Tolerance for Catholics with an Established Church of England were policy in the former Spanish Colonies of East and West Florida while under British rule. East Florida was lost to Spain in 1781.

Religious tolerance for Catholics with an established Church of England were policy in the former Spanish Colonies of East and West Florida while under British rule. East Florida was returned to Spain in 1783.